1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a process for the production of lycopene, a carotenoid that is important in the fields of medicines, feed additives and food additives and also to an intermediate of lycopene.
2. Description of Related Art
For the synthesis of lycopene, which is a symmetric C40 compound, there have been known following methods such as a method of coupling two C15 compounds and a C10 compound, a method of coupling two C10 compounds and a C20 compound (e.g., Pure & Appl. Chem., Vol. 69, 2039 (1997) or Helv. Chim. Acta, Vol. 39, 463 (1956)) and a method of coupling two C8 compounds and a C24 compound (e.g., DE 2554924 A1). However, these methods were not always satisfactory in that they required to synthesize two different compounds of different carbon numbers and molecular structures. There have also been known methods of coupling two C20 compounds as reported in Proc. Chem. Soc., 261 (1961) and Liebigs Ann. Chem., 1146 (1977), however, these methods are not always practical from an industrial point of view because they required multistep Wittig reactions and oxidation-reduction reactions to obtain C20 compounds.